Essentials

TBT: Betty Dodson, the woman who held masturbation classes in her living room

In 1968, a vibrating back massager called the Magic Wand was released by Hitachi. It was marketed as a product to relax tense and aching muscles.

But one woman made it her mission to teach women exactly how this product should be used: to promote orgasm.

Her name? Betty Dodson.

Betty re-introduces the Magic Wand as a tool for sexual pleasure in the 1970s. She bought Magic Wands “by the case” to share with women in her Bodysex groups (Hand out)

Dodson, now 87, ran ‘Bodysex’ classes in the 70s and 80s in the living room of the New York apartment she still lives in now. The Bodysex premise was simple: liberate women, one orgasm at a time, by teaching them how to masturbate.

In fact, she was so successful in her quest the Magic Wand is still favoured as the vibrator of choice by women around the world.

Sex in the City fans may remember an episode featuring Samantha instructing other women on which “back massagers” give the most sexual pleasure.

It all began with a slideshow of vulvas

The first of her family to graduate from high school, the self-described sex-positive feminist moved to New York in 1950 to train as an artist.

Here, amid the second wave of feminism, she held the first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery.

“Women are capable of having far more sex than men”

Bodysex came hot off the heels of her presentation of a slideshow of vulvas at the NOW Sexuality Conference in 1973.

But the seeds of the idea for empowering women with orgasm were planted much earlier. Whilst hosting orgies in her apartment in the 60s, it became clear to her that a number of the women were faking their sexual pleasure.

Dodson’s mission for 30 years has been to liberate women by teach self-love, sisterhood and sexual pleasure

Looking, breathing, feeling

Dodson is clear: women need much more than just intercourse to orgasm, regardless of what TV and film depictions of sex suggest.

“Vaginal penetration only doesn’t work for most of us,” she reminded Truthout in 2014. “And we’re not all meant to be monogamous either, especially since women are capable of having far more sex than men.”

They have been vulnerable. They have been seen and heard. Most importantly, they have had a positive experience with pleasure – Carlin Ross

Women would sit together in a circle in her living room and discuss their body image and orgasms, be taught about – and crucially look at – their genitalia, practice breathing exercises and learn how to stimulate themselves to reach orgasm using her technique.

Electronic massagers such as the Magic Wand were often used by Dodson during classes to help women orgasm.

The Betty Dodson method

The method advocated in her Bodysex classes became known as ‘The Betty Dodson Method’.

Dodson relaunched her Bodysex workshops in New York in 2014. The format remains the same: over two days, women are invited to join the classes and learn how to orgasm.

“When you share your orgasms and your sexual energy, it’s healing,”

“If everyone woman in the world took a Bodysex class, we would be in charge”

Betty Dodson

Dodson, like all of the women attending, will be nude. “When I walk in nude and sit down, I’m just anybody,” she said last year. “I’m in the circle. There is no hierarchy.”

She now runs the website Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross, a corporate lawyer by trade who swapped law for the chance to become Dodson’s business partner. The site was launched with the aim of engendering “better orgasms for a better world” through her model of self-love and feminist-based sex education.

Classes continue in the same format today

Betty teaches women in her class

“We receive so much love and gratitude from the women [who attend the workshop],” Ross tells i.“In many ways, we’re bonded like family. Most don’t want to leave at the end of the weekend. Sitting in a circle of women is so powerful and uplifting.

“For most women who take a workshop, it’s the first time they’ve experienced pleasure in a safe environment surrounded by sisterhood. It’s not about romantic love, there’s no agenda. They are in their body – together but alone – stimulating themselves to orgasm and it’s fun.

“They have been vulnerable. they have been seen and heard. Most importantly, they have had a positive experience with pleasure.”

The Godmother of Masturbation

Gloria Steinem declared Dodson “one of the early feminists”. After hearing Dodson discuss sexuality on an obscure local show in the 1960s, Steinem was shocked: “[it] was the first time I’d ever heard women be sexually honest in public”.

“There are many manly men who don’t want women to become sexually knowledgeable because down deep they know it would call for a major change in their own sexual behavior” – Betty Dodson

Women are beginning to reclaim their right to sexual pleasure but Dodson believes there is still much work to be done. To start with, we don’t even know what to call our genitalia.

She says we should use vulva, sex organ or female genitals instead of ‘vagina’ because vagina refers to the birth canal – and the birth canal is not where sexual pleasure emanates from.

Get ready for the pleasure revolution

“As long as we say ‘vagina,’ guys think that all they have to do is stick their penis inside a vagina, and it will feel as good to us as it does to them,” Dodson said. “I repeat: Most women cannot orgasm from vaginal penetration alone.”

Ross is confident attitudes towards women’s sexual pleasure are finally shifting, pointing to Teen Vogue’s decision to run an extensive piece on the internal clitoris as evidence others are taking up Dodson’s mantle.

“Betty started the dialogue by insisting that the clitoris is a woman’s primary sex organ,” says Ross. “Words like ‘masturbation’ and ‘clitoris’ trend with the release of her feminist classic Liberating Masturbation.”

“Here comes the pleasure revolution” – Betty Dodson

Dodson is equally optimistic and in 2016 declared the arrival of the next wave of feminism: the sexual wave.

“We never really dealt with sex before besides birth control and abortion,” she adds. “Here comes the pleasure revolution.”

iNews

https://inews.co.uk

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